Chemical Defects
by orionshuntingdog
Summary: ["Girlfriend" was certainly not what he wanted with her. Not that he wanted anything with her at all.] Swaplock. Sherlock Holmes is the one with the hopeless (or so he believes) infatuation for Molly Hooper. Of course it's unrequited (or so she believes) but she is in the centre of something she cannot possibly imagine. There are many things they both must realise.
1. i - My Head Has Thoughts

**A/N: Thanks so much for clicking and reading!**

 **GUYS THAT FINALE. HELL. I'M STILL SHAKING TBH. AND THAT MOLLY SCENE – I WAS A BUBBLING MESS ON THE SOFA I TeLL YOU.**

 ***ahem* Anyway... The reviews on "An Ambulance Without Sirens" were so heartwarming (thank you, thank you, thank you) that I've decided to try writing a multi-chapter Sherlolly. I take absolutely no credit for the Swaplock concept, but this is my take on it – although I'll be** **attempting** **adding in some mystery as well.**

 **As always, all the sciency stuff is completely made up. Should probably pay attention to those science A Levels at some point. And kudos to who knows where the chapter title comes from.**

 **Note: "UKIP" is a far right political UK party, very anti-immigration and** **quite racist.**

 **If you could leave a cheeky review I'd be so grateful : they're better than Molly stabbing Tom with a fork.**

* * *

"My Head Has Thoughts (What A Ridiculous Place To Start)"

Or

"Well, How About My Chest, Or More Specifically, My Heart?"

* * *

Everyone knew how it was. The pathologist, usually so at home in her work, so chipper around others, was left wrong footed and uncertain around the detective her heart refused to let go. There were tuts of sympathy, winces of pity at their each interaction. Everyone knew how it was, and everyone wondered why someone as feeling as Molly Hooper had chosen someone as insensitive as Sherlock Holmes to long for.

And then there was a moment, perhaps an ill fated Christmas party, when she understood just how deep, and how hopeless, her true feelings were. She somehow cast him off the pedestal she had placed him on, and their relationship evolved into something much more valuable. A friendship.

Of course, he too eventually realised many things. But before that there were many mistakes, embarrassments and the dull ache of unrequited longing.

Overall, they reasoned – John on a taxi to Baker Street, Mrs Hudson over a cup of tea, Lestrade running up the stairs to stop a theft – she had braved through it rather well, all things considered. God, imagine being infatuated with the most oblivious man in the universe. They all shook their heads.

Imagine said oblivious man having to face it himself, and the pathologist free of all the complications. There would be much more confusion, mess, and indeed amusement for everyone else. In short, he certainly wouldn't deal with it nearly as well.

Now wouldn't that be poetic justice?

* * *

The whip whistled through the air until it hit the corpse on the table with a sharp crack. It was swung again, back and forth, back and forth, _whistle crack_ , _whistle crack_. The actions of a madman executed with precision and purpose, each seemingly violent action being calculated for a specific result. How poetic, he thought drily: a perfect summary of his own character.

Sherlock ceased abruptly as the doors opened, staring fixedly at the corpse with far more attention than it was due. Of course, _she_ was here, though he wished it so desperately otherwise. No: the slow speed with which the heavy doors had swung open indicated that they had received nothing more than a careful, light push, distinct from the aggressive slamming of the other morgue workers. Distinctly her.

Molly called out cheerfully, "So, bad day, was it?"

He barely resisted the corners of his mouth turning upwards, ensuring his head remained _put_. Fingers strumming across the riding crop, he refused to indulge in conversation, allowing the case to encompass his mind: "I need to know what bruises form in the next twenty minutes. A man's alibi depends on it."

A furtive glance in her direction, "Text me."

"Right, of course it's for a case. What a convenient way to justify – uh – corpse beating therapy." She laughed quietly, and the joy of the sound vibrated through him, seeped into his very skin. The morbidity of her humour repelled some, puzzled others, but had the odd effect of creating this irritating buzz of warmth in his chest.

He opened his notebook quickly, scribbling down the most obvious observations, keeping occupied.

A drawer opened, and she pulled out a couple of instruments. She glanced at Sherlock for a couple of seconds, that being enough for her to determine he was not wholly engaged with the case. Why not? Boredom? It not being more than a 6? Interest in another experiment? – she remained blissfully unaware, in short. Reasoning therefore that he wasn't too preoccupied to entirely shut down conversation, she recalled her weekend experience that she'd been keen to share with a rare individual who'd be interested.

"Went to a pathology conference in Paris. Some really exciting research on the effect of smoking in life on _rigor mortis_." She began eagerly, slipping her fingers into gloves.

How muscles set after death. Sherlock looked up, interested in spite of himself, and cursed the flood of information entering his brain.

Hair: brown, ponytail – regulations in this area of the morgue – but a couple of tendrils fallen around the sides of her face, need tucking? {Urge to do so, _quelled}_ Further reflection: no need, face framed, a rather tantalising effect – _tantalising?_ Pathetic. Suggests she didn't plan for hair to be tied up – in a hurry then – STOP.

He took a barely perceptible breath, replying casually, "Hmm, what was their reasoning?"

The more she talked about her work, the more confident she became, and it was (admittedly) enjoyable to watch. Her voice became more animated as she explained, "Increased levels of carbon dioxide in the blood caused by smoking stay there for a bit after death. It's a great absorber of heat, and because temperature affects the setting of the muscles after death, you would be able to tell from a corpse's muscles..."

"...whether the person had been smoking during their lifetime." Sherlock finished, his voice exhilarated. His eyes met hers in enthusiasm. The emotion that passed through him, the bright joy of discovery shared, the utter closeness, was so brief yet powerful that he quickly broke eye contact.

"So I suppose someone trying to get away with a secret smoking habit would be caught even in death." She chuckled dryly.

"Well," He glanced at her, unable to resist a boast, "I wouldn't need the muscles to tell. There are all the more obvious signs: in the eyes, teeth..."

There was a pause as she thought on that. Then she looked over at him and raised her eyebrows, said slyly, "Not if the corpse was decapitated."

He couldn't contain a short laugh at that. "Or an extreme acid burn." He added.

"Or a violent fire."

"Or lengthily water submerging."

"Or a bad bash up."

"Or hewed to limb sized pieces."

"So basically," Molly concluded triumphantly, "The research is useful."

Sherlock raised his hands up in a gesture of surrender, "I admit - it may have its benefits."

Her eyes twinkled in merriment. It was refreshing, being able to joke so easily with someone about morbid deaths, without them giving her a slightly perturbed/judgemental/outright terrified look. She gave him a happy smile, then pulled the ever mounting shift of paperwork towards her, beginning to note down the blood test results for the day. This was a task that usually numbed the brain in a way that could give anaesthetics a run for their money, but with Sherlock in the room there was never a dull moment. Her shoulders relaxed as she began to scribble down numbers.

After an easy silence, he looked across at her to ask for the keys to the upstairs lab –

"Lipstick." He blurted. What? Since when did he _blurt_? She looked up, surprised, and he schooled his expression into its usual unaffected nature. He elaborated steadily, "You weren't wearing lipstick before."

"I—er." She hesitated, but continued quickly, offhandedly, "I refreshed it a bit." That seemed to remind her of something, as a slight flush crept up her neck, and she began quickly gathering up her paperwork her usual messy-neat pile.

Lipstick – pale pink. Emphasises mouth - desirable effect, very... {STOP} _._ Yet implies delicacy – not wanting to seem too forward. An early interaction with the object of her interest. Confirmation: previous observations on her state of hurry. Their conversation had only been distraction from a pre-determined objective.

He groaned, swatting an invisible fly near his head, trying to dispel such _useless_ information from his mind, but this, along with every single observation he had made about her, was proving increasingly difficult to dislodge.

She fetched the keys he needed, already knowing his work habits. They jingled listlessly from her side for a second, before she stated, "New coffee barista."

"Hm?" He had shrugged on his coat, still engaged in wrestling with his stubbornly resistant mind.

She sighed exasperatedly, "It's irritating when I know you've deduced something about me, so..." His head had turned sharply towards her in surprise, and she continued, slight embarrassment mixed with amusement in her voice, "...he's not so bad looking, so I thought I'd try my luck."

She dropped the keys into his palm, and his fingers closed around them tightly, his knuckles turning white, the cold metal digging into his skin. He amplified the pain, tried to use it to focus his mind, to drown out the unexplainable frustration surging inside of him as she walked away.

Over her shoulder, she called, "I'll grab you a coffee. Black, two sugars?"

A reply was unnecessary: coffee orders had been committed to heart by both of them long ago. As the doors began to swing shut again, the words that wandered out of his mouth to fill the air sounded no different from his usual speech. Yet in his ears they felt so deflated, so resigned, that he cursed inaudibly.

"I'll be upstairs."

* * *

This man had certainly caught his attention. His resolute determination to appear ordinary, to suppress that hunger for danger, was interesting to say the least. If nothing else, proving his limp was only psychosomatic would be fun.

"Ah, Molly." He called jovially as she entered, and added as an afterthought in an attempt to justify the liveliness of his tone, "Coffee, thank you."

For of course he had noticed the hastily rubbed off lipstick. All previous romantic interest clearly lost. As she handed him the coffee cup, the heat that passed through seemed to warm every crevice of his skin. Don't ask, don't ask, do not – "What happened to the lipstick?"

Well at least he had managed to keep the triumph out of his voice.

"It wasn't working for me." She grimaced. He heard her mutter, " _Bloody UKIP supporter_ " under her breath as she walked out of the door again, and he fought back a smile.

* * *

 _The first time he meets her, a dead woman lies on a slab. Her hair curls around her face, in ringlets until they reach her shoulders. He catches himself trying to work out what hair product she used to use. God, he's higher than a kite caught in a tornado._

" _So how'd she die, then?" The detective inspector's voice cuts across his reverie, impatient and incredulous. "Mycroft Holmes says you can crack the case. Maybe if you do, I won't throw you in jail."_

 _His bloodshot eyes roam across the mostly covered corpse – already eight ideas, but further evidence needed. In frustration, he yells, "How am I supposed to answer that without seeing the whole body? I don't just pluck these things out of thin air!"_

 _His shaking hands run through his hair before falling to his side in a clench. Boring. Boring people. Boring body. Not enough for his racing mind, not enough to quell the urge for another fix. What was Mycroft thinking?_

 _Just before the senior pathologist unveils the rest of the corpse – an action far more fulfilling than the unwrapping of a Christmas present, he thinks –, he feels a soft tug on the sleeve of his hoodie._

 _Out of sheer disbelief, he doesn't ignore it, but turns around. Nobody has strayed within two feet of him because of the smell, a smell cultivated for that particular purpose – distance. But this woman, a small, hesitant, little thing he must have presumed was part of the furniture – as he does with all those_ people _he has no use for – is nervously but resolutely demanding his attention._

 _With no attempt at concealing his disdain, he replies tersely, "Yes?"_

" _Well—er—" With the power of his unflinching gaze directly and fully on her, she begins increasingly fiddling with her sleeves and fixedly staring at a spot behind him, but continues, "She's quite mangled, and –um—I'm not sure how much experience you have with this sort of thing, so..." His eyebrows rise higher and higher, but she finishes determinedly, "This might be a bit of a shock."_

 _There is a tense pause, as he stares at her, almost open mouthed. Lestrade gives him a warning look. Then – he cannot help it – he begins to laugh. Fully and utterly, it echoes around the room of dead bodies, until there is a maniacal edge to it._

 _Everybody else in the room looks embarrassed, awkward, which just amuses him further, But then the woman flinches, stepping a couple of paces backwards, and somehow that cuts the laughter short._

" _Right, well." He snorts, "Mary, isn't it?"_

" _Molly."_

" _Well, Martha, I think considering you've just broken up with a boyfriend two weeks after you left the last one, you have body confidence issues – specifically about the size of your breasts – although unfortunately your lack of fashion and taste in your clothing do you no favours there - you live alone with only your cat for company, a diabetic cat at that, and you spend your evenings watching reruns of Jane Austen adaptations, as well as the fact that you referred to a dead body with a personal pronoun, it's not_ my _emotional wellbeing in handling a corpse that you should be concerned about, yes?"_

 _She looks forlorn, her lips press tightly together – he waits for the inevitable storming out of the room, or a choice string of swear words, perhaps a slap (no threat of damage, considering her small frame). But only a barely perceptible, resigned, accepting and (he can scarcely believe it) slightly impressed phrase escapes her._

" _OK."_

 _She moves to the back of the room again, and as she passes her senior he gives her a glaring look and hisses something at her._

 _Lestrade coughs, and announces, "Well if you're done showing off, could we get back to the murder?"_

 _The senior looks apologetic, and removes the sheet quickly. There is a large gash on the leg, which had clearly bled profusely. He looks further, and sees the patch on the upper leg devoid of hair, and the lower half covered in it. Interesting –_

 _Gruffly, Lestrade interjects, "We thought the massive cut was the cause of death, you know, standard blood loss. But then the autopsy report came in, and turns out time of death was way earlier than the time it would've taken for the victim to bleed out."_

 _He rolls his eyes. Unnecessary information. From the way Lestrade crosses his arms and breathes out sharply through his nose, he realises he may have observed that out-loud. No matter._

 _Pattern of leg hair – victim had been shaving before death [using what? – shaving cream]. Whatever caused the death led to a loss of consciousness first. Caused razor from hand to slip – pattern of the gash accounted for. Loss of consciousness caused by [Brute force? Lack of bruising – dismissed] [Inhalation of toxic gas? Analysis of lungs came up clean – dismissed] Toxic substance diffusing directly into skin – a reaction with the shaving cream with another product on the skin –two products previously harmless but when combined ... theory - promising._

" _What medication did she use on her skin?" He demands._

" _Steroid cream. For eczema." The senior pathologist replies uncertainly._

" _Well, there you have it." He gestures dramatically to the corpse. Bewilderment fills him at the varying degrees of confusion on everybody's faces. Is he just especially high, or are people really this slow?_

 _He explains quickly, impatiently, the words tumbling out like a stampede, unable to keep up with his mind._

" _Victim applies steroid cream to skin. Decides to shave, and so piles on the shaving cream. The two substances quickly react to form a toxic product, which diffuses from her skin directly into the bloodstream. Leads to unconsciousness followed by death. When she lost consciousness, the razor slipped from her hand and caused the gash."_

" _But," The senior splutters, "That can't be – the alcohol in the shaving cream is a primary alcohol, not a secondary one, so it could not have reacted with the benzene rings in the steroid cream to form a toxic product." He draws himself up to his full height, "I tested it myself."_

" _You've tested it_ wrong _, then_." _He hisses, stepping forward, glaring back. Lestrade's eyes dart quickly between them. Even though he's dressed like a junkie, is trembling like a junkie, and well – is one, he excludes authority in his very stance, and the tension in the air is palatable between the two men._

 _It is broken by a soft cough._

" _Um," The woman blinks rapidly as all three men stare at her, "I'm sorry –I er—I did some extra chemical analysis of the cream." She adds quickly, stares at the ground, "Just for something to do."_

 _Of course, that was a lie, she knew her senior had made an error, but for once he deigns not to observe out loud, and instead fixes his gaze on her with new found interest._

 _She continues, growing more confident with each word, "There's a more obscure test, but it does show conclusively that the cream has a secondary alcohol, which means..." Looking up, her eyes meet his, and she nods, "It would have reacted with the eczema medicine to form a toxic product. He's right."_

 _There is a slight wonder in her voice, and for a single moment, she seems to have transcended the events in the room – the way her senior's face is slowly turning red, the security of her job position, the way he himself had insulted her – to study the truths he lays out for her._

" _Alright, then." Lestrade says, scratching the back of his head in bewilderment. He glances at him, "If this all checks out-"_

" _It will."_

" _Then you'll have just solved us a case we were ready to give up as a lost cause." He mutters disbelievingly, pauses for a moment, then asks, "Do I have your number?"_

" _No." He walks to the door, smirks and replies, "But I already know yours. I'll be in touch."_

 _And so there, with the dead woman on a slab, he meets her. It is not as though there is any sort of revelation, or epiphany. He doesn't give the hesitant but resolute woman any second thought. He reflects on the surprising fulfilment he feels on solving the case, how for the first time in an age his urge to use has dulled slightly, and many other things she is not included in._

 _And yet the next time they meet, images rush to his brain on the sight of her. The frayed sleeves of a knitted jumper. A warm yet resolute gaze. A soft tug on his sleeve. And he remembers her name._

 _He walks away from that first meeting with his mind full of everything but her._

 _And yet._

 _And yet._

* * *

"I'm not his date!"

Of course the yell was useless, as John soon realised, muttering only a sarcastic, "Thanks." when Angelo placed the romantic candle on the table. He cheerily didn't take the hint, strolling away merrily. Sherlock didn't move his eyes from the window.

After a short discussion on arch enemies, in which ordinary people seemed to have found yet another way to prove how dull they really were, he was rather curious to see the standards John expected his life to meet.

Without any readable change in his expression, he asked, "What do real people have then, in their real lives?" Somehow repeating the word real made it all the more illusory to him, all a show.

"Friends." John stated gradually at first, nodding. He continued more quickly as if checking off a list, "People they know, people they like, people they don't like." A slight pause as he considered, then said quickly, carefully, "Girlfriends, boyfriends."

"As I was saying," His voice was monotonous, "Dull." For it really was. These "requirements" seemed to be listless, one after the other, with no individuality or significance to any of them.

John asked again, "You don't have a girlfriend, then?"

" Girlfriend?" He repeated slowly, drawing out the word.

He pictured the sentimental slog that passed in society for a meaningful romantic relationship: the flowers, the films, the inevitable untidy breakups that clouded the mind, made everything so messy – and that, in his line of work, was often simply another motivation for murder.

Unbidden, _forbidden_ images of her rose to the front of his mind. Nothing romanticised, he had never seen things in rose-tinted colours. The most unflattering jumper: her tugging the ends of it. Awkward chatter to fill silences: new understandings at the end of conversations. Dark circles under the eyes: delicate fingers rubbing them absentmindedly. The confusion in her face at an observation he makes: the wonder in her gaze as he explains it.

No. "Girlfriend" was certainly not what he wanted with her. To label something was to confine it, and these un-catalogued, rebelling emotions she was creating in him were proving extremely resistant to any sort of confinement. Not that he even knew what he wanted with her, not that he wanted anything with her at all.

And so it was with absolute truth he could answer, "No. Not really my area."

"Really?" John leant back in his seat, and decided to bite. "That woman at Barts. Molly."

He didn't move an inch, didn't even blink, just continued to stare out the window, and silently cursed himself for somehow choosing the most observant army doctor in Britain.

"You both seemed pretty friendly." John said matter-of-factly, but desperate to understand the enigma before him, to find a crack.

To discuss the matter was to examine it fully, and Sherlock wished to keep such internal reflection to a bare minimum, especially with the additional emotional assessment of the man before him (who was surprisingly skilled at this – catalogued). For God's sake, there was a murder to focus on.

Impatience crept into his voice, "She supplies me with body parts. Not exactly the stuff of romance."

John chuckled awkwardly, "Alright. Maybe not."

Although his suspicions didn't entirely leave him, he let the matter drop as Sherlock pointed out the taxi pulling up outside the window.

* * *

Molly leant against the door to her flat, exhaustion etched on her face.

Her limbs felt heavy, her arms somehow too weary to even lift the key to the lock. She loved her job, loved the way she provided legacies for the ones who couldn't leave them for themselves. But sometimes the long shifts, or perhaps the unchanging route of the walk home, made her feel so unanchored, so unsure of whether she was grasping at all life had to offer, or whether she was letting it pass her by.

Pawing sounds at the door brought a smile to her face, banishing some of the tiredness to the back of her mind. It was always a comfort to know Toby was waiting for her. Her fingers turned the key, and she shuffled in, pausing in the doorway to give him a scratch in that spot behind the ears where cats keep their hearts.

Her smile widened as she remembered Sherlock's oddly childish aversion to cats – she never would have thought him a dog person (an extreme one at that) but on reflection it fitted perfectly.

The man was baffling, a whirlwind almost, with his unkempt hair and his swishing coat and eyes that seemed to be permanently alight. But somehow she understood him entirely, his need for space but company, silence but conversation, because it was a balance she held dear herself.

She had realised that for some reason he had developed the defence mechanism of locking away his emotions, but she had also realised (far more than he had) that those emotions were so powerful in their own way that they could not bear to be neglected. And so finding paths to access them, seeing she had made him feel - even in the smallest of ways - gave her a kind of fulfilment.

He brought something to her in turn. The thrills, the unexpected, the sheer and utter exhilaration of his life: he carried it all with him, always. And being able to share in those experiences, all the times he made her a part of them, was something precious. Their friendship touched a part of her deep within.

She'd wrapped her arms around herself without realising. With a soft smile to herself, she straightened up and ambled to the kitchen to make a cup of tea - after today's experience, coffee was the last thing she wanted. Toby seemed strangely agitated, and she frowned as she heard him meowing urgently at her.

She stopped dead.

The kitchen was before her, the window open, an eerie and cold draft blowing the curtain aside. Everything suddenly seemed so still: the chair at the table, the letters pinned on the wall, the drawers shut closed.

She moved forward in a daze, fingers stretched outwards, until they connected sharply with the countertop. There were no tears, no screams, just a blurred sense of muted horror and – and _recognition_. Her fingers traced the two words scrawled there, large as life, and as they came away, she registered with dull shock that they too were now covered.

Covered in blood. For that was the sight that met her: her kitchen countertop running red, blood dripping away from the two words that had been painted there in it.

Her hands hung limply at her sides, and she slid against the doorframe, down to the ground. Mute, she slowly mouthed the words again.

 _Thank you_.


	2. ii - Who Did I Think I Was?

**A/N: Wow, thanks so much for all the faves + follows! I hope you all enjoy the new chapter: I've introduced the fandom famous Meena into it, and I'm curious to see whether you think my take on her is any good. I think I might be putting this story on hold for a bit because I'd rather have a couple of chapters written for more frequent updates! Reviews are better than John shaving that 'stache.**

* * *

"Who Did I Think I Was?"

Or

"Who Did I Think That I Could Be?"

* * *

White bubbles of soap tinted murky red, up to her elbows, couldn't quite remove it all, and still traces, traces, traces burnt in the back of her retinas.

The house phone light blinked uncertainly at her, but somehow the thought of calling the police deadened in her mind, the more she tried to clutch at the idea, the more it faded.

And so she scrubbed. Scrub, rinse - repeat. Repeat. Repeat. Repeat.

That sense of familiarity that had met her upon seeing the words refused to leave. She didn't understand it, and this scared her far more than the blood. Usually, emotions were resolutely her area, and so not comprehending the origin of what she felt made her hands shake and her mouth dry.

She took a sample of the blood (force of habit), stared at with confusion for a moment - how it had ended up in her hand again? - , before she quickly stuffed it in her coat pocket.

It was strange. The more she cleaned, the more the horror, the shock - the rational emotions at what she had seen - dulled into insignificance. Like the vividness of the colours had washed out into pale shades.

Only recognition remained.

* * *

"Oh no, you guys escaped the bombs hidden in my handbag, my dastardly plot is ruined!"

Meena's loud sarcastic yell was heard right across the cafe, and the middle aged couple it was aimed at tried to keep their faces as nonchalant as possible as they continued to scurry away. Molly shook with laughter, and her subsequent attempts to hush her best friend were half hearted at best – especially as they kept being punctuated with further snorts of barely suppressed mirth.

Meena registered this with a smirk, saying, "I know, I know, Molls, but please, they didn't have to move _two tables_ away!" She threw her hands up in the air, "I didn't even sit right next to them!"

Molly rolled her eyes, muttering, "You can't exactly reason with a racist." She looked Meena straight in the eyes, laid her hand on hers and said seriously, "If you ever feel the urge just to murder a few of them, I'm more than happy to forge the autopsy paperwork."

"Aww darling, you have no idea how much that means to me." Meena squeezed her hand back, and then sighed dramatically, "But that may not help with the whole 'Muslims are terrorists' thing."

Laugher erupted from her once more, with Meena joining in wholeheartedly. After a couple of minutes, when they began to notice their noise was gathering strange attention from the rest of the cafe goers, they slowly came to a stop.

They had met at medical school, unknowingly both headed in the same direction: St Bartholomew's Hospital, although both planning on frequenting entirely different floors of it. They weren't roommates, weren't even in the same lab or tutorial group, and probably would never have spoken had it not been for Meena sliding into the lecture bench next to her on a random afternoon in March.

"Sorry if I keep yawning." Meena had whispered, "My own fault for staying up 'til 2am so I could livestream last night's Glee episode."

Molly's eyes – with dark circles under them for exactly same reason – had widened, and although she paid complete attention to the lecture as she always did, immediately afterwards she had unashamedly grabbed Meena. They had chattered excitedly for around two hours with in depth analysis on every scene and character – ("It's so hard to tell to what extent Jesse was just manipulating Rachel or whether he _really_ had feelings for her!") - and well, the rest was history. Their friendship had only strengthened over the years, although sadly – to their dismay – the show had suffered the opposite.

Upon graduating university and facing the trauma of an overwhelming schedule that came with medical training, they'd quickly realised that unless they made a weekly commitment to see one another their only interactions would be bumping into each other in hospital lifts. And somehow they weren't too eager to joke about a co-worker's haircut in the presence of stretchers holding patients quite literally on the verge of death.

The cafe was their usual haunt. If anybody asked them, it was because of the rugged antiquity of the armchairs, the homely wooden tables scattered around, the 'cultured' paintings on the walls..."It's just got its own unique aesthetic, you know?"

The reality was that after squabbling for about twenty minutes they had pulled up Google Maps and searched for any random cafe that was exactly an equal distance between both their flats. And when there was coffee, gossip and intense political debates to be had, they really couldn't care less what was on the walls.

"...and that's why David Cameron is a twat and shouldn't be allowed to set one foot in Downing Street." Meena finished resolutely, taking another sip of her coffee.

Molly hesitated, saying slowly, "I don't know, Meena, Labour has screwed up royally these past ten years. I doubt Cameron could be worse than Tony Blair."

"If that's the only thing that qualifies a prime minister these days, then God help us." Meena sighed, forlornly staring into her now empty cup. Molly nodded in agreement – politics was becoming more and more of a mess lately – before Meena leant forward in her chair with a glitter in her eyes.

"Right, now that we've passed the Bechdel test..." Molly spluttered slightly – Meena's casual use of feminist jargon always amused her – "I can interrogate you on your love life with no guilt."

Molly rolled her eyes, declaring, "Every week you ask me. Without fail."

"Yeah, well," Meena smirked, "I don't date, and your stories give me another reason not to."

She dodged Molly's ill aimed punch to her shoulder, laughing all the way, before Molly relented and told her all about her dashed hopes with the gorgeous looking but regretfully bigoted coffee barista.

"Well, I can't say I'm sorry." Meena chortled.

"Me neither." Molly raised her eyes to the heavens, "And to think the highlight of my day was Sherlock whipping a corpse."

Meena chuckled at that, but raised her hands, said firmly, "Not too many details, please."

Molly shook her head, and said with wonder in her voice, "I still don't understand how you got through med school with such a hatred for dead bodies."

"Just because I don't have your _fascination_ with them -" Meena began to retort, then recalling that they'd had this debate about fifty times before, gave up and continued on a different path, teasing, "You know, the morbidity you and him share should make you both the perfect couple."

"Right..." Molly said slowly, swirling the word around in her mouth, somehow not knowing at all what else to say, waiting.

"No," Meena's voice took on a more solemn tone, hammering nails into a long built coffin, "Not seriously. I can never get over what he did to you."

" _I'm_ over it now, honestly." Meena began to open her mouth, but Molly just smiled and waved her down, resignedly yet affectionately repeated the familiar mantra, "It's just the way he is."

And she leant back in her chair and remembered. Remembered the incident that had made her lose any romance she could have felt for Sherlock Holmes.

* * *

 _Bang._

He was alone, the room too empty, his mind full – cluttered.

* * *

 _Bang_.

"I've always been...fascinated by you."

* * *

 _Bang._

The recoil of the gun of Sherlock's hand was disappointingly weak, easy to manage, easy to distance himself from.

Days like this were difficult. The oh-so-familiar itch, one that beat a pulse in his temple, was beginning again. Though he'd been clean for over a year now, he'd never trained himself to need the thrill any less, only to look for it in other things.

The sofa slowly sunk into him, and he tilted his head back onto the crook of it, trying to empty his mind. Useless, of course.

Sofa: valuable [texture of leather, genuine, wood from solid oak]. Yet picked up from a car boot sale by Mrs Hudson [smell of petrol in fabric] and not carefully looked after [threads unravelling from edges, discoloured patches]. A valuable item with its true worth unknown.

Impulses beat inside his brain with nothing to anchor them, his thoughts colliding into his emotions. He despised this lack of direction, because it quickly lead to wandering, and wandering was dangerous.

The carrier bag full of body parts rested tauntingly within view. Yes, he'd needed another supply [perhaps not of the body parts], he'd been running low lately [but the fridge was full] and experiments helped spark his mind [was this what it felt like to be the subject?], so, yes, a trip to Barts had been necessary.

Increasingly, disturbingly, whenever his mind was beyond the controls he clasped on it, his thoughts would wander to the same place. Moments of her. Unnecessary, _worthless_ information that had somehow threaded itself into the seams of his sub-consciousness, seams that were unravelling into everything in his mind.

And not just what was real, but what was not. The smooth touch of his skin on hers, his fingers digging into her back, hers tugging on his hair, his mouth exploring every inch of her. What he lacked in experience, he certainly made up for in imagination. But at least these imaginings could be tucked away under the guise of hormones, libido, – the trappings of a male body, distracting perhaps, but necessary to serve once in a while. The same way he categorised all other physical sensations: hunger, thirst, tiredness – all needed limitations to the vessel he carried his mind in.

No, what was agitating him was the other kind of fantasies he had begun to have. The ones impossible to categorise or explain away. Him curled into the small of her back, his hand sliding into hers, his head in her lap as her eyes met his in silent laugher –

Focus on the sofa. Not well looked after [threads unravelling from edges] –

Her face lit up in excitement as they ran away from a suspect criminal –

Valuable. [wood from solid oak] –

Her arms around him as he rested his head in her shoulder.

 _The thrill in other things_.

Images intensified, piling on top of each other in their rush to be appreciated. His mind flitted from one to another, faster and faster, until they blurred into a stream of...feelings he refused to label, of something he had long ago decided to suppress.

His seething frustration, his longing - the emotions so disappointingly _ordinary_ \- coursed through his veins through the gun into a bullet, shattering another hole in the wall.

The gun was cold in his fingers, and he tried to use it to anchor his mind, but all it did was sap the warmth from his blood.

 _Bang._

He jumped up, firing the gun, over and over again at random, and the swirl of his dressing gown was blue all around him, and the wall seemed to drab, so monotone.

A case. Occupation was what he needed, no room for reflection. But nothing was providing, nothing, nothing -

 _Bang_.

"What the _hell_ are you doing?" yelled John, bounding up the stairs.

Resentment scalded him as he realised (for once) he had no real answer.

His gaze refocused on the empty fireplace, the wood barren, dry, so easily ignited. Sparks travelled somewhere between his mind and his heart, threatening to set alight a fire he couldn't control. (Once - as a child – he'd tried. He'd cupped a lit match in his hands, and with a mute sense of shock he'd realised his fingers were burning).

* * *

Molly dragged on her coat, fumbling in her pocket to find the lab keys. The lack of any unusual autopsies to do had been disappointing – it was good that the majority died of natural causes, but spending a whole day cataloguing the same thing one after the other made her job far less interesting. For the sake of her sanity, she joked, people really should find more exciting ways to die.

So there had been no cases today - in fact, no cases for about three days now. A wicked smile lit up her face as she imagined Sherlock attempting to cope with that. No wonder when he'd visited her today he'd seemed jittery – she could only hope for John and Mrs Hudson's nerves to remain intact.

Her fingers felt something bump against them, something long and unidentifiable. Her hand closed around it, and she pulled it out of her pocket, slightly perturbed. It was a test tube of blood. For some reason, her mind took a while to catch up with her eyes, before she recalled that she had taken a sample of what had been on her kitchen counter top.

She held it in her hand, swirling the blood in circles up and down, gazing vacantly at the murky traces it left on the glass. There was something faintly tapping at the edge of her mind. Something, something, something. A vagueness she couldn't concentrate into precision.

So she did what she knew how to do instead. Testing it seemed the next logical step: although only the criminal classes had their blood samples on record, in all fairness they would be the most likely suspects. Still, she didn't expect to be able to identify it at all – the sort of criminal who could break into her home undetected, scrawl a message in blood and leave without a trace didn't seem the type who'd ever be caught in prison.

So she placed the sample in the machine. It was strictly against regulations, but she decided to leave it overnight, being far too impatient to wait any longer than morning for the results.

* * *

Later, she lay awake in bed, staring at the ceiling. There was a tired ache in her bones, but her mind was too troubled to drift off into sleep. A quick glance at her bedside clock told her in glaring red numbers that it was – _still_ – 2am. For a while, all she did was lay there, tried to let the warmth of the blankets lull her into a slumber, but she remained trapped in that fitful state between waking and dreaming.

A deep guttural moan escaped her, and slowly she dragged herself out of bed. There was no point in trying to sleep any longer, not with the questions circling over and over in her head.

So she wrapped her coat firmly around her, let herself quietly out of her flat, and decided to go where she always did when something bothered her.

The lights of the main street dazzled her. Cars zooming across the road at full speed, the drunken yelling of the crowd of teenagers around her, the beeping of the street crossing – sometimes she forgot that night could be just as active as day.

The questions began again. _Who wrote the message? Why was she being thanked? Why hadn't she called the police? What was that recognition she felt? Was she safe?_

But as she looked into the black sky and felt the cool wind hit her cheeks, she felt her spirits lift ever so slightly. There was something comforting about that sensation that only night could bring.

And so she began walking determinedly forward, trying to focus only on her destination, promising herself time to reflect when she got there.

And 'there' was a small playground behind Barts hospital. To the outside eye, there was nothing special about it – only a couple of run down swings, a murky slide, and one of those springy chair things that someone had broken long ago. One of those parks that had been rolled out by the government in the '80s in an attempt to create more 'safe spaces' for children, but had never really been maintained and so had quickly fallen into disrepair.

But to Molly, that little playground had been her whole world. She turned into a narrow alleyway – her 'secret shortcut'- and smiled as the sound of the main street was suddenly muffled. She caught sight of the playground in the distance, and allowed the memories to envelop her.

She and her dad used to go there, always at night – which may have raised some eyebrows from the authors of those _How To Parent Your Little One_ books, but her dad had always been the eccentric. She would always clamour to go on the swing, he'd push her a couple of times, and she would feel (as all children did) higher than the rest of the world, as though her fingertips could brush the edge of the universe. But her real favourite moments were when they would lie on the grass together, and he would point out the stars.

She'd follow him excitedly with her tiny fingers and shriek, "When I'm older, I'm going to go there!"

And he'd chuckle lowly but reply seriously, "If you can get there, you will."

She grew older and the swing grew too small, but they would still go and lie on the grass. That playground became her place of comfort, the place where she would confide in the one person who always listened.

Sometimes, he would still point out the stars, and she'd obediently follow him, though she'd long since memorised the names. And when she said again, resolutely, that "I'm going to go there." her gaze rested, not on the sky, but on the hospital building opposite.

And her dad would chuckle again, and reply just as seriously, "If you can get there, you will."

Molly chucked along with the memory of her father, tucking her hands into her coat pockets, letting that bittersweet melody of past happiness and present loss fill her once more. But as she reached the swings, her reverie was cut short by the definite sound of someone trying to mask their breathing behind her.

She stood sharply still, her senses increasing tenfold, her ears straining to pick out more sound. She hadn't heard the person's footsteps behind her, so clearly they'd been deliberately matching their pace to hers. Under the pretence of reading a nearby sign, she glanced out of the corner of her eye and saw them – a hooded man – stand still in turn at the end of the alleyway. Keeping a specific distance away, matching her footsteps, the distinct prickling of an intense stare on her back – it all suggested one thing.

He was following her.

Her stomach coiled at the realisation, but she stayed frozen to the spot, assessing her options. She could run, but running had never been her strong point, and she'd soon be caught. And according to some Buzzfeed article on self-defence, apparently confronting a potential threat was more likely to make them back down. Her breath caught in her throat as she decided what she had to do.

Slowly she turned around, keeping her hands in her pockets to hide their shaking, and she began to tread forwards to where the man stood. Beats of sweat broke out on her forehead, her dry mouth chattering and her feet so heavy she felt as if she was dragging them through every step.

She so desperately wished she could summon a brave smile to mask the utter terror she was feeling, but God, she was too scared to even do that.

The man raised his head, and she was close enough to see his stare roam all over her. He'd realised that she knew, that she was now a witness to him, a threat. He narrowed his eyes, her step faltered, and his arm moved forward, forward towards her.

Her heart beating thunder in her ears, her hand found the can of deodorant in her pocket. In the instinct of a split second, she lashed out and sprayed a torrent of chemical into his eyes.

He bellowed and clutched his face, stumbling backwards. Gasping, the adrenaline coursing through her veins, she whipped round at the sound of someone else sprinting towards her.

"What the-"

It was another man, and she clutched the can again, her knuckles turning white, but he moved past her and collided with her would-be attacker, throwing them to the ground.

The man's black curls were strewn across his face as he lunged, punching the other man in the stomach. The Belstaff coat, the blue scarf tossed towards the mud - they all should have been giveaways, but it wasn't until she saw the flash of rage in his sea-green eyes that she registered who he was.

"Sherlock!" She breathed, "What are you-"

He was beating the man over and over again, backhanding him across the face, kicking him in the sides.

Shock filled her at the sight, shock and...something else, something warmer, and so for a second she couldn't properly process what he was doing, only that she should probably put a stop to it. She said hesitantly, "Alright, leave him alone."

He barely registered her voice, continuing to strike the man, whose face was quickly becoming an unrecognisable mess of pulp. Like an electric shock, she suddenly fully understood what he was doing, that he was seriously injuring this man, far beyond the limits of what was necessary, and with no thought to the consequences that could mean for the both of them.

"Sherlock!" She yelled angrily, "I said, stop it."

There was a flicker in his eyes, his arms wavered, and she knew she'd gotten through to him. Slowly he came to a stop, gazing at the unconscious man on the floor like a piece of dirt on his shoe.

Furiously, he spat, "He deserves far worse."

With every moment that passed he looked more and more murderous, more and more in danger of starting up again, so she kept her voice level, reasoning, "He's out cold, he's not a threat anymore."

His fists clenched and unclenched, his teeth ground, and he began ranting feverishly, "What kind of complete and utter piece of-"

"And you!"He suddenly rounded on her, his eyes alight in anger, yelling, "What the _hell_ are you doing here?"

"What?" She spluttered, shocked at his outburst.

"You really thought this was the best time for a romantic walk in the moonlight?"

"And if I did?"

She crossed her arms, on the defensive, annoyed at his irrational fury, annoyed she didn't understand where it was coming from.

"It's bloody 2am!" He ran his fingers through his hair, and shook his head in disbelief, "Are you so stupid that I have to spell out what could've happened to you?"

"You're over exaggerating." She said simply, ignoring his outraged look. Attempting some ill-timed humour in hopes of calming him down, despite her own pulse still racing at a million miles per hour, she joked, "Statistically, I'm far more likely to be assaulted by someone I know."

"Statistically, this time of night is when young women like you end up on a slab!" He yelled.

"Sherlock, this isn't the first time I've been followed by a creep." She said impatiently, lifting the can of deodorant, "I've learnt to be prepared."

"And what if you hadn't noticed him following you?" His voice was frantic, "He could have...could have-" There was a crack in his voice, and he seemed to deflate, his hands falling limply to his sides, his stare moving to the ground.

She was struck all of a sudden by the sheer vulnerability in his stance, the way his face seemed wracked with an inner turmoil, struck by a need to reassure him somehow.

"I work in a morgue, I know the true sound of being surrounded by nothing but dead people, and that was not it. I promise I would've been alright." She said softly, reaching out a hand and letting it brush against him. He closed his eyes for a second, as if grounding himself back into reality, and then opened them again.

His look towards her became more direct and focused, and he asked carefully, "You really are OK?"

"Yeah." She sighed, and that single word softened his expression, made him seem slightly more satisfied. He looked away, as though guilty at how extreme he'd been previously, and somehow that touched her.

"Sherlock." She said gently, causing him to look up and meet her gaze. She gave him a tender smile and said, "Thank you."

He nodded, then walked over to the coat and scarf he had discarded, shrugging them on again in a way that seemed still slightly embarrassed.

Though she didn't necessarily owe him an explanation, she wanted to give him something, so she stated, "I had a lot on my mind, and I used to come here with my dad, before he –" She stopped abruptly, then rushed the next words, "Well I just needed to."

Her face coloured slightly as her words seemed so utterly insufficient. But he turned his head towards her and met her gaze, and though it was only quick, somehow she felt that in spite of it all he understood completely.

"So...what are _you_ doing here? At this time of night?" She asked curiously, her eyes searching his face inquisitively.

"I, ah..." He shifted his weight from one foot to another. She didn't break eye contact, until finally he admitted, "I was at Barts."

"You broke into Barts? At 2am?" She exclaimed.

"Lower your voice Molly, you don't want to attract anymore night-time companions."

She opened her mouth in outrage, but he pressed on hurriedly, "Look, I just needed to do some experiments that you might not exactly approve of, and I needed to do them now."

"And these couldn't wait until morning...why?"

"Because I needed to test a theory." He seemed confused by the question.

She shook her head helplessly, realising it was pointless to argue the point further. Spreading her hands, she said, "Look, I promise you, there's not going to be an experiment you do that I'll be weirded out by."

His eyebrows raised, his expression screamed disbelief, but she smiled in that soft way of hers and said, "Honestly, the morbidity of the ideas I used to have in medical school would trump yours by far. It's probably best for everyone that I only deal with dead people." She joked, chuckling to herself, and he cleared his throat and looked away.

She took the action for one of boredom, and abruptly self conscious of rambling, got to the point. "What I mean is, whatever you want to do, I'll do my best to help. But,"

She stepped forward, determinedly looked him straight in his eyes until he swallowed, and insisted, "Only if I'm there. I've fought hard enough for this position, and you're not going to be the reason I lose it."

His eyes slowly wandered around her face, and to her bewilderment he seemed to be almost searching for something. Finally, he muttered, "OK."

Uncharacteristically for him, he hadn't put up a fight, and she was pleasantly surprised. His shifty expression – as though a child had been caught misbehaving - warmed her. Feeling a little childish herself, but determined to seal their agreement somehow, she stuck out her hand.

His eyes widened a little, and there was a perceptible pause as he stared at her hand, before he slowly swung out his arm to meet it in a shake.

A pianist would have been a good occupation for someone with fingers as long and thin as his, she mused. But when she felt them within hers, she noted with surprise that they were rough, with faded scars.

The handshake was firm, determined, and for a moment his thumb grazed faintly over her knuckles.

And then he abruptly let go.

He stepped back and nodded slightly, his face impassive, blank. She titled her head in turn, trying to find the words to conclude what had passed between them that night, but she was soon convinced he'd gone away inside his head again, where he wanted to be left alone.

She tucked her hands into her coat and turned away, walking back to the main street. Perhaps she should have been nervous, wary of the night after what she'd experienced, but she felt warmed by a gaze that she knew wouldn't leave her until she'd returned safely home.

Her fingers splayed, as if puzzled at the feeling of empty air that now encircled them, or rather, the feeling of something withheld, something unfinished.


End file.
